Speaker
Description
English is widely spoken, and the demand for Business English is higher than ever. However, EFL Vietnamese business students found it hard to master the business English skills, especially the presentation subskills. With the integral use of technology to learn languages, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the Yoodli Artificial Intelligence application for improving presentation skills for EFL Vietnamese business students at an English Academy in Vietnam, majoring in business English. The thesis is designed to answer two research questions: the first is to explore if Yoodli application has a positive effect on the improvement of students’ presentation skills, and the second is their perception toward the usage of the application. Participants were 16 business students at the pre-intermediate level at the English Academy in Vietnam. An oral pre- and post-test, a speaking rubric, and a questionnaire were used. The study adopted a quasi-experimental, one-group pretest-posttest scheme. The selected speaking sub-skills represent the presentation skills: fluency and coherence, lexical resources (filler words, weak words, conciseness, repeated sentences), grammatical range and accuracy, pronunciation, delivery (centering, eye contact, pacing, and pauses), and idea-organization. Findings of this research revealed significant differences in the mean scores of the pretest and posttest, and the results showed that the application improved students’ presentation skills. Based on the qualitative Likert scale analysis of the questionnaire, students had a positive attitude and feedback toward the use of this AI application. It should be recommended as a tool for improving students’ English proficiency.
Biography
My name is Tran Le Ngoc My. I am currently a Master of Arts in Linguistics with a TESOL concentration, having graduated from a joint program between the University of Society and Humanity of Ho Chi Minh City and Benedictine University in Chicago, USA, in 2024. I also have two bachelor's degrees: one is in International Business, from which I graduated with very good results, and the other is in English Studies graduated with excellent results from Can Tho University in 2019. I also got the Pedagogical profession certificate from Can Tho University in 2021. I have over ten years of experience teaching English and have worked for a variety of universities and English centers (S.E.E., CELA, Langmaster, ALT, MD EDU, Haslee, and Impactus), as well as a visiting lecturer for the University of Economics and Law in Ho Chi Minh City as a foundation English teacher and occasionally at Can Tho University teaching English for Logistics to international business students from the Departments of Economics. My teaching majors are English for Communication and Business English.
